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Company:Wawa, headquartered in Wawa, PA, is a chain of convenience stores located in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia and Maryland, that offers branded sandwiches, coffee and snacks.

Update (1/18): Even though this news was just published in the trades, which often means the account transitioned 4-8 weeks before the publish date, we've been told that the Harmelin, Philly team is still evaluating strategy. If so, there should still be time to secure larger deals this year.

Further, keep in mind that mobile outlays were way up last year (more info below), likely to drive more foot traffic. Also, the bulk of Wawa's display is bought programmatically, meaning it's highly likely that these dollars will flow through DeskOne, Harmeln's new in-house programmatic buying team.

Some people care where they buy their gas and Combos apparently since their place on the corner isn't amazing, hence Wawa spending on advertising. So Northeast and Mid-Atlantic sellers should pitch strategies that will help Wawa standout from rival c-stores.

Below posted 1/9

Opportunity: Named Harmelin Media, Philly as media AOR to handle placements across various media channels, including TV, radio, out-of-home, digital and sports sponsorships. The appointment comes not long after Wawa announced the opening of its 500th fueling shop (of its 730 total stores), as well as its 100th Florida location. In other words, as the company continues to grow, expect marketing efforts to increase simultaneously. So, East Coast sellers should engage Harmelin and in-house decision makers to secure revenue across these media channels.

Additionally, (I know I sound like a broken record here), hiring a new media agency often signals an upcoming creative agency shift, so ad agencies should keep pitching. We'll let you know if we find out that creative has already moved recently.

Additional Insight

Media Spend: WaWa spent $32.2 million on measured media in 2015 and $10.4 million through the first three quarters of 2016, according to Kantar Media. This year, the bulk of budget went to natoinal spot radio and out-of-home (OOH).

Digital Breakdown: Per Pathmatics, so far this year, Wawa has spent $5,500 on digital display, $3,600 of which was allocated towards desktop and $2,000 towards mobile. Of these ads, 73% were placed site direct, 20% DSP, 4% SSP, 2% exchange and 1% ad network. Top ad destinations include chron.com, thesuperficial.com, parenting.com, androidauthority.com and mentalfloss.com.

For 2016, WaWa spent $649,600 on digital display, $360,800 of which went to desktop, $270,700 towards mobile and $23,900 to video. Of these ads 47% were placed site direct, 16% exchange, 15% ad network, 11% SSP and 10% DSP. Top ad destinations include abovetopsecret.com, philly.com, Yahoo Homepage(yahoo.com), wikia.com and walmart.com.